--- Warren Ockrassa <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Mmmmmaybe. I'm not sure how much of low turnout can > be attributable to > happiness as opposed to apathy or outright > disenfranchisement. Wasn't > it NV that had a "none of the above" box on their > Prez ballot? That got > 2,000+ votes, I think.
Out of _how_ many voters? 2000 votes is probably below the number of voters who put a mark in the wrong box. > > I mean that of the people who didn't vote this time, > I would bet a vast > preponderance chose not to because they didn't like > the choices and > figured voting for one bad apple wasn't any > different from voting for > another. It probably seemed the least wasteful of > time not to vote at > all, and I'm not sure I'd be able to propose any > really convincing > arguments otherwise. Do you have _any_ empirical evidence for this? We have plenty of opinion polls that suggest that this is not the case. We have an historical record in which, if the economy is growing and we are not at war, turnout is low. You've just told a nice story. What's your evidence? Mine is pretty simple. Right now we're at war. Turnout was high. In 1968 we were at war. Turnout was high. In 1864 we were in the middle of a Civil War, and turnout was _unbelievably_ high. Presumably people are not happy in the US when we are at war. When people are unhappy they vote. In 1988 and 1996, by contrast, we were not at war and the economy was booming, and turnout was low. I think I have a story here that has considerable empirical support. ===== Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. www.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
